There’s a wonderfully amusing story in the papers today; Neil McCann has told a judge, during a battle over his divorce, that he fears he will be found liable for and have to pay a £700,000 tax bill which is due to land on him because of his notorious EBT.
This will put McCann in a rather unfortunate position; one where he may well have to deny the continuation of Rangers.
This saga is laid out in a report which, actually, is pretty damned near pristine despite the rag in which it is published.
Writing about McCann’s court appearance in The Sun, today, a guy named Graham Mann doesn’t even bother to pretend he believes in all the standard bullshit, and he lays it out in cold forensic language.
“The bitter legal wrangle between Gers and HMRC became known as the Big Tax Case, which later saw the club liquidated — before a ‘newco’ was formed and allowed into the old Third Division.”
The truth jumps at you from the page; that’s how rare it is to read an accurate, factual, summation of what actually took place.
When you do, you are momentarily surprised by it.
I say fair play to Mann for not gilding the lily and reporting it right.
McCann said he wasn’t aware that it was a tax scam when he signed the contracts; the Idiot Defence, cause that one always works, right?
If I were him I’d go for the other one, the Dead Club Defence … as in “why don’t you take the money from Rangers? Oh wait, they died, didn’t they?”
It worked for David Murray; he’s always tried to dodge responsibility on that basis.
He made no bones about the death of the club when he was giving his statement in the aftermath of the Supreme Court verdict.
And don’t forget, five years into the life of Sevco, Murray was pretty much telling us what we already know and what so few hacks dare to do.
“The decision will be greeted with dismay by the ordinary creditors of the club, many of which are small businesses, who will now receive a much lower distribution in the liquidation of the club, which occurred during the ownership of Craig Whyte, than may otherwise have been the case.”
Liquidation. Of. The. Club.
Someone should explain this to people in the way that Mann did.
There was no “relegation” here. No miraculous survival.
I can’t feel much sympathy for McCann.
Indeed, I can’t feel any. His assertion that he was too daft to know what he was signing is risible. Even if he hadn’t a clue he had a very well compensated agent who would have been more than clued up.
McCann isn’t the only one living in fear of wee brown envelopes; over the next year or so we should be treated to much more squealing like this … and when people like Souness have to account for why they were given generous “loans” from Ibrox when they no longer worked there I’m going to be very interested to see what answers they give.
Wee shout out to @Zeshankenzo on Twitter for this one.